Afterwards they sat in the Combination Room over coffee and cigars, glancing occasionally at the large colour television set that had been installed for the occasion. At nine they switched it on and watched the news, while Arthur, the waiter, was told to bring some more brandy. Sir Cathcart arrived at the invitation of the Dean and when the Carrington Programme began all those who had some part in it were present in the Combination Room. All except Skullion, who sat in the studio with the suggestion of a smile softening imperceptibly the harsh lines of his face.
In the Combination Room Cornelius Carrington’s voice broke through the last bars of the Eton Boating Song which had accompanied the opening shots of the Backs and King’s College Chapel. “To many people Cambridge is one of the great centres of learning, the birthplace of science and of culture. Here the great English poets had their education. Milton was a scholar of Christ’s College.” The interior of Milton’s room appeared upon the screen. “Wordsworth and Tennyson, Byron and Coleridge were all Cambridge men.” The camera skipped briefly from an upper window in St John’s to Trinity and Jesus, before settling on the seated figure of Tennyson in Trinity Chapel. “Here Newton,” Newton’s statue glowed on the screen, “first discovered the laws of gravity, and Rutherford, the father of the atom bomb, first split the atom.” A corner of the Cavendish Laboratory, discreetly photographed to avoid any sign of modernity, appeared.
“I must say friend Carrington has a way of leaping the centuries fairly rapidly,” said the Dean.
“What’s the Eton Boating Song got to do with King’s?” asked Sir Cathcart.
Carrington continued. Cambridge was the Venice of the Fens. Shots of the Bridge of Sighs. Punts. Grantchester. Undergraduates pouring out of the lecture rooms in Mill Lane. Carrington’s emollient voice proclaimed the glory that was Cambridge.
“But tonight we are going to look at a college that is unique even in the unchanging world of Cambridge.”
The Master sat forward and stared at the College crest on the tower above the main gate. Around him the Fellows stirred uneasily in their chairs. The invasion of their privacy had begun. And it continued. Carrington asked his audience to consider the anachronism that was his old college. The balm had left his voice. A new strident note of alarm had crept in suggesting to his audience that what they were about to see might well shock and surprise them. There was an implication that Porterhouse was something more than a mere college and that the crisis which had developed there was somehow symbolic of the choice that contronted the country. In the Combination Room the Fellows gaped at the screen in amazement. Even Sir Godber shivered at the new emphasis. Malaise was hardly a word he’d expected to hear applied to the condition of the College and when, after floating through Old Court and the Screens, the camera zoomed in on the plastic sheeting of the Tower there was a unanimous gasp in the Combination Room.
“What drove a brilliant young scholar to take his life and that of an elderly woman in this strange fashion?” Carrington asked, and proceeded to describe the circumstances of Zipser’s death in a manner which fully justified his earlier warning that viewers must expect to be shocked and surprised.
“Good God,” shouted Sir Cathcart, “what’s the bastard trying to do?” The Dean closed his eyes and Sir Godber took a gulp of brandy.
“I asked the Dean his opinion,” Carrington continued and the Dean opened his eyes to peer at his own face as it appeared on the screen.
“It’s my opinion that young men come up today with their heads filled with anarchist nonsense. They seem to think they can change the world by violent means,” the Dean heard himself telling the world.
“He did nothing of the sort,” shouted the Dean. “He never mentioned Zipser!”
Carrington issued his denial. “So you see this as an act of self-destructive nihilism on the part of a young man who had been working too hard?” he asked.
“Porterhouse has always been a sporting college. In the past we have tried to achieve a balance between scholarship and sport,” the Dean replied.
“He never put that question to me,” yelled the real Dean. “He’s taking my words out of context.”
“You don’t see this as an act of sexual aberration?” Carrington interrupted.
“Sexual promiscuity plays no part in college life,” the Dean asserted.
“You’ve certainly changed your tune, Dean,” shouted the Chaplain. “The first time I’ve heard you say that.”
“I didn’t say that,” screamed the Dean. “I said…”
“Hush,” said Sir Godber, “I’m trying to hear what you did say.”
The Dean turned purple in the darkness as Carrington continued.
“I interviewed the Chaplain of Porterhouse in the Fellows’ Garden,” he told the world. The Dean and Bishop Firebrace had disappeared to be replaced by the rockeries and elms and two tiny figures walking on the lawn.
“I never realized the Fellows’ Garden was so large,” said the Chaplain, peering at his remote figure.
“It’s distorted by the wide-angle lens…” Sir Cathcart began to explain.
“Distorted?” snarled the Dean. “Of course it’s distorted, the whole bloody programme’s a distortion.”
The camera zoomed in on the Chaplain.
“The College used to have a brothel, you know. People like to pretend it was a nunnery but it was actually a whorehouse. In the fifteenth century it was quite the normal thing,” the Chaplain’s voice echoed across the lawn. “Burnt down in 1541. A great pity really. Mind you I’m not saying there weren’t nuns. The Catholics have always been broadminded about such things.”
“So much for the ecumenical movement,” muttered the Senior Tutor.
“So you don’t agree with the Dean that…” Carrington began.
“Agree with the Dean, dear me no,” the Chaplain shouted. “Never did. Peculiar fellow, the Dean. All those photographs of young men in his room. And he’s getting on in years now. We all are. We all are.” The camera moved away slowly, leaving the Chaplain a distant figure in a landscape with his voice growing fainter like the distant cawing of rooks.
The Chaplain turned to the Senior Tutor. “That was rather nice. Seeing oneself on the screen like that. Most enlightening.” In the corner a strangled sound issued from the Dean. The Senior Tutor was breathing hard too, and staring at the river at Fen Ditton. An eight was swinging round Grassy Corner and an aged youth in a blazer and cap cycled busily after them. As the eight approached and disappeared the screen filled with the perspiring face of the Senior Tutor. He stopped and dismounted his bicycle. Carrington’s voice interrupted his panting.
“You’ve been coach now for twenty years and in that time you must have seen some extraordinary changes in Porterhouse. What do you think of the type of young man coming up to Cambridge today?”
“I’ve seen some lily-livered swine in my time,” the Senior Tutor bawled, “but nothing to equal this. A more disgraceful exhibition of gutlessness I’ve never seen.”
“Would you put this down to pot-smoking?” Carrington enquired.
“Of course,” said the Senior Tutor, and promptly disappeared from the screen.
In the Combination Room the Senior Tutor was speechless with rage. “He didn’t ask me any questions like that. He wasn’t even there,” he managed to gasp. “He told me they were simply going to film me on the river.”
“It’s poetic licence,” said the Chaplain, and relapsed into silence as Carrington and the Senior Tutor reappeared in Hall and strolled between the tables. The camera focused on the several portraits of obese Masters before returning to the Senior Tutor.
“Porterhouse has enjoyed a long reputation for good living,” Carrington said. “Would you say that the sort of expense involved in providing caviar and truffled duck paté was really necessary for scholastic achievement?”
“I think much of our success has been due to the balanced diet we provide in Porterhouse,” said the Senior Tutor. “You can’t expect people to do well unless they are adequately fed.”